Apple is the reason you can't get naked on Instagram

Store policy comes before artistic freedom

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Instagram claims to stand for artistic freedom, yet the service has taken down photos that include nudity from the accounts of Miley Cyrus, Naomi Campbell and countless other users – but according to the CEO it's not the app's fault.

Instagram CEO Kevyn Systrom has claimed Apple is the reason the app doesn't include naked photos as the App Store has regulations against nudity.

At the moment you can only include nudity in apps that are restricted to users 17 or older. Instagram is looking for a wider audience than that for the app, so it has to keep to Apple's regulations.

No nipples

Committing to Instagram's artistic freedom policy, Systrom also said: "In order to scale effectively there are [some] tough calls."

One such situation has been the #FreeTheNipple campaign where Instagram has been forced to take down a number of images of naked women.

Since we originally published this piece it's been brought to our attention that Instagram's community guidelines allow for photos of "post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding" as well as nudity in paintings and sculptures.

Instagram will keep deleting pictures of female nipples that don't apply to these terms so it can keep that open rating on the App Store.